Chris McDonald

This comes back exactly to my point about regulation. Through our work with the EU, we are endeavouring to ensure that we have maximum access to the market. Where regulatory burdens are restricting export activity, I am keen to hear about them. I encourage businesses to come forward and support the questionnaire we have released on business regulation. The industrial strategy places an emphasis on growth and frontier industries, but it also gives a clear focus to city regions and clusters with the highest potential to support our growth sectors. It is important to us that we grow the manufacturing sector across the country and also businesses, small and large, in supply chains, as well as well-known household names. I reaffirm that the Government have an ongoing commitment to UK manufacturing. We can too easily think about manufacturing as being about household names and consumer products, but we have heard a lot today about manufacturing businesses in the supply chain that employ many more people and make a significant economic contribution, over and above the consumer products we can buy. As I know myself, manufacturing is about local businesses that have an impact locally on communities and prosperity, as well as on the growth of the country. The Government have a high ambition for our manufacturing industry. By 2035, we want to be the best place in the world to start, grow and invest in advanced manufacturing. We want to double the annual business investment entering the UK manufacturing sector from £21 billion a year to nearly £40 billion a year. That requires bold action, and in many of the measures I have set out we are looking to do more. The steps we have taken in setting out the industrial strategy and various sector plans this year, and the reforms we are making to skills, finance, innovation and regulation, will have a positive and lasting impact, not only for valve manufacturers in Calder Valley but for other specialist manufacturers around the UK.